ABS DAY: THE HEADLINES

20 October 2011

Seeing one's own work discussed on the
morning news can feel a little strange. However, on October 6th
solicitors and insurance companies were in abundance on newsroom
sofas and radio studios, explaining to the public what the Legal
Services Act could mean for them.

The Co-operative Group was ahead of the pack and dominated
coverage in mainstream media on the day the Legal
Services Act came into force and it was well positioned to explain
the potential benefits of liberalisation, with its high street
offering already piloted in branches for some months.

For the legal sector itself, the milestone of who would be first
to achieve licensed status by running an Alternative Business
Structure took up a large part of the legal trade press' time with
Solicitors' Journal reporting how the conveyancing sector was ahead of
the curve. However it quickly emerged that the anticipation for
the rest of the market would have to continue a while longer after
the Solicitors Regulation Authority was found to be lagging behind the Council of Licensed
Conveyancers as an authorised regulator.

As all this rather serious talk threatened to dominate thinking
for the day, The Lawyer reminded us of the sexier side
of things; 'It's here, people. It's D-Day. A great tectonic
shifty kind of day. A day when legal services are going to be blown
apart by Tesco, Coca-Cola or Lidl.'